


Half in love with easeful Death

by maggiedragon



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: (sort of), Anal Sex, Bittersweet Ending, Complete, Credence is a ghost, Graves is not okay, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Minor Character Death, Mutual Masturbation, Recovery, Sensation Play, Theseus is a Good Friend, Wild misuse of the Song of Solomon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-09 03:40:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12268137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maggiedragon/pseuds/maggiedragon
Summary: The first time it happened, Graves thought he was drugged. When he woke up groggy and in pain and disoriented in the hospital room of Saint Katrina's Mediwizarding Center, he wasn't alone.   There was a slender figure with close-cropped dark hair and a pale gaunt face standing in the corner.The next time Graves knew who he was. A slip of a boy out of the corner of his eye. The boy he'd never known, the boy he'd betrayed regardless. The boy he'd failed. Credence Barebone's ghost.





	1. Dying is a Spectrum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first time it happened, Graves thought he was drugged. When he woke up groggy and in pain and disoriented in the hospital room of Saint Katrina's Mediwizarding Center, he wasn't alone. There was a slender figure with close-cropped dark hair and a pale gaunt face standing in the corner.
> 
> The next time Graves knew who he was. A slip of a boy out of the corner of his eye. The boy he'd never known, the boy he'd betrayed regardless. The boy he'd failed. Credence Barebone's ghost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the first chapter for my prompt fill for the Gradence Trick or Treat Halloween Prompt. 
> 
> Following the events of Fantastic Beasts, one of the pair is dead (Graves or Credence - it’s up to you!) and one is alive, slowly recovering & readjusting to the world (again, up to you who!). The living wizard (Credence or Graves) and the ghost (Credence or Graves) meet and fall in love with each other. (Tingly ghostly kisses encouraged! <3) On Hallowe'en - when the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead is thinnest - the ghost becomes corporeal again for one night…

The first time it happened, Graves thought he was drugged. The Painkiller Potions of the mediwizards must be warping his mind and making him hallucinate. He hadn't known who it was at the time, just that when he woke up groggy and in pain and disoriented in the hospital room of Saint Katrina's Mediwizarding Center, he wasn't alone. Theseus was half-asleep in the uncomfortable chair next to the bed-- God, Thes. What kind of hell must this have been for him?-- but there was a slender figure with close-cropped dark hair and a pale gaunt face standing in the corner.

“Thes, who is that?” he rasped, voice used to wordless screams now struggling to produce words and meaning. His best friend hadn’t answered at first, the tight grip and the foreign obscenities-- _you sodding git, Perce, don’t you ever scare me like that again_ \-- overwhelming the barely audible question. 

He had asked again and Theseus had glanced over his shoulder, lines of concern forming on his forehead. 

“Perce, there’s no one here but me.”

“But…” And when he'd looked again, the slender shape was gone.

The next time Graves knew who he was. A slip of a boy out of the corner of his eye. The boy he'd never known, the boy he'd betrayed regardless. The boy he'd failed. Credence Barebone. Coerced and seduced by a man wearing his face and put down by Graves’ own Aurors. The very same Aurors who came to interview him. When had _Percival Graves_ stopped and _Gellert Grindelwald_ begun? What had he known about the Obscurus and the Second Salemers? When they entered Credence shrunk back and pressed himself back into- _into_ the wall, shoulders vanishing into the wallpaper.

“You know he's right behind you,” he’d snapped at the tactless bastard who’d muttered that really, Mary Lou Barebone would have done them all a favor if she would have finally snapped and killed the creature. 

The Aurors had glanced behind them. _There's no one there, Mr. Graves_ and nearly immediately after they departed, a mediwizard had come talking very gently about taking time to heal and Calming Draughts and understanding that the mind could scar as well as the body. 

He stopped mentioning it.

Maybe he had gone insane. Maybe the pale face in the corner of his vision had finally accomplished what Gellert Grindelwald hadn’t-- at least not _entirely_ managed. It didn't matter. The rest of faculties seemed unharmed-- besides the dreams and there were potions and brandy for that. Besides. A constant reminder of his guilt? Of his failure? Graves was fully capable of doing that on his own without the help of this shade who quietly dogged his steps, fading in and out but never remained gone for more than a handful of hours. 

Graves saw him in the hospital, quietly watching, shrinking away when the Aurors arrived. Once, Tina Goldstein came to see him and he’d stepped out into the light as if he was about to speak, but her eyes swept unseeing over him. He’d curled in on himself and vanished.

He saw Credence at MACUSA, too, when Picquery finally, begrudgingly let him return to his work. He spent an afternoon watching the boy drift through his office, examining books and magical devices in the tall glass-panelled shelves. Credence only dared approach the desk when Graves had gotten up to find a book. He could still see him, faintly reflected in the glass shelving and bent over the model of Magical Exposure Clock.

“It's a gauge for how likely the No-Majs are to notice us,” he said. “You apparently skewed that reckoning quite a bit.” 

Credence jerked upright and vanished.

 

The boy appeared in his home as well. It startled Graves every time he did it. His home was warded, spells interwoven with each other, buried deep in the very brick and hardwood of the brownstone. It hadn’t saved him, of course. There was nothing his wards could do when when their own Imperiused master invited a monster through the front door. 

Graves was certain, though, he hadn’t invited Credence. His home felt wrong enough already. The brandy set on his end table was missing a snifter, a jarring asymmetry he caught himself on every time he reached for a glass. The photo of his sister cried upon seeing him. The avatar of his failure standing quietly in his living room did nothing to let him remember that this was his home.

He didn’t notice the books until he’d been home for two weeks. It hadn’t been a good day. They’d started to go through his memories in a Pensieve and frankly, whoever thought “reviewing memories from an objective standpoint” helped with the healing process had clearly never watched themselves be _tortured_ in brilliantly precise third person. He’d come home late, rattled, ill-at-ease and all he had wanted was two-- fine, _four_ fingers of brandy and a book to lose himself in. Zoticus Pippins’ _The Development of the European Wizarding State_ had always struck him as persuasive and surprisingly entertaining, despite its dull sounding title. 

Gellert Grindelwald had apparently shared his opinion. Written in a cramped-but-legible hand in the margins of the introduction was a note: _cf. Demetrius Falco role of feudal wizarding advisors_. 

The fascist son of a bitch had written in his books. 

Silver-white flickered in his vision. Graves yelled, dropping the book as his wand snapped up by instinct to level at Credence Barebone’s face. 

His hand was shaking and he sheathed it with a scowl. “What do you _want_?” he snapped at the boy. The _ghost_ because that’s what he was. A ghost that for some reason, only he could see despite never having had an ounce of Sight in his life. It wasn’t enough to be metaphorically haunted by his failure, he had to be literally and Graves was too tired and too old to appreciate the poetic irony of it all. 

Credence stood silent.

“I don’t know what you want! Why are you doing this?” Graves gestured, encompassing-- this. All of this. Following him. Appearing. Bearing witness to the wreck of his life and his mind and his career. “I fucked up. I lost. I let that fascist son of a bitch get the better of me and you paid for it. Maybe more than I did.” 

Graves only felt like the living dead, after all. Credence actually was. 

“I don’t understand.” He took a step towards the apparition, who shrank back an inch, foot slipping into the bookshelf. “I--I’m not going to hurt you. Hell, I don’t think I could if I tried. But I don’t know what you want, Credence. Do you want me to apologize? I do. I am...so sorry. I’m sorry we lost you. You never should have been allowed anywhere near that woman. I’m sorry you were deceived and I’m sorrier that it was by someone wearing my face. And I’m sorry we killed you. None of this should have happened to you.” 

Credence looked at him for a nearly eternal moment before fading away. 

Graves nearly screamed in frustration, alone now in this house that didn’t feel like home, no matter how many memories he had of calling Theseus through the Floo to wish him a happy birthday, drinking chilled Sancerre in the living room with his sister, pacing in the kitchen and eating scrambled eggs directly out of the pan as he looked over case notes. 

He spent the rest of the night drinking and systematically burning every book that Gellert Grindelwald had written in. 

 

Caribou Island was only accessible by boat. That was the point, after all. Unplottable, thickly warded against Apparition and entirely disconnected from the Floo Network, accessing the island required a long and difficult trip from Agawa Bay, navigating not only the dense Lake Superior fog but also the shallow reef that ran along the south side of the island, a scant eleven feet below the surface. 

It was cold, wet, miserable and virtually inaccessible. Which was why it worked so well as a high-security prison jointly run by MACUSA and the _Societé pour la Réglementation des Sorciers Canadiens_.

Graves tucked his chin into his scarf as he stood on the deck of the run-about, watching the light of the lighthouse strobe across the greyish fog and blue slate water. Only the way the light refracted and bent around a body that shouldn’t be there made Credence’s appearance visible against the fog. 

“I take you to the nicest places. I know,” he muttered. Caribou Island slowly swam into view and he glanced at Credence. The boy had nearly backed through the wall of the hospital room upon seeing the Aurors. What would he do brought face-to-face with the man who had betrayed him? 

Well, face-to-face was inaccurate, perhaps. Credence was dead, after all, and _Graves’_ face had done the betraying. Still, dead or not, Credence deserved a warning. 

“I don’t know if you control when you disappear. But you might want to,” he said. Credence, as always, didn’t answer, so he continued, watching the wake of the boat churn the water into thin trails of foam. “The place we’re going to. Gellert Grindelwald is imprisoned there. The man who stole my face. Who lied to you.” 

Credence drifted closer and the movement was almost inquisitive. 

“Why? Because he’s being a smug son of a bitch and MACUSA thinks showing him I didn’t starve to death in my own linen closet will ruffle his feathers. Or they’re hoping I’ll crack up in his cell and they’ll have a reason to make me retire. Take your pick.” Graves exhaled and watch a plum of steam rise from his lips. Credence watched too. Did the boy miss breathing? Graves didn’t even know if it was possible to miss something so instinctive, but...how would you not?

The boat docked at the island. 

“Last chance,” Graves told Credence before following the two Canadian Aurors who had accompanied him off the boat. 

Credence followed and Graves wasn’t sure if it was bravery or being unable to run away. Maybe it was both. 

 

“Percy. How terribly good to see you.” Grindelwald’s smile might have looked pleasant if he’d been nursing a coffee at a Viennese _Schanigarten_ , but here, in the frostbitten interrogation room on Caribou Island, with his wrists shackled and thickly warded to restrain his magic, it looked uncanny. 

Graves wanted to break every single one of his perfect teeth. 

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t return the sentiment,” he bit out.

Grindelwald tsked. “Percy. If MACUSA was desperate enough to risk sending you, shouldn’t you be more--” He stopped mid-sentence, face suddenly alight with a keen and nearly possessive interest. “My dear boy, are you still pining? Can you still call it out? Even now?” 

Graves didn’t even register the motion. He saw Credence cringing back against the wall and then he was between them, his body a barrier and a statement. As if the dead needed any kind of protection that he could offer. How quixotic. 

“You were talking to me, not him.” 

Anger flashed across the other man’s mismatched eyes and his face went hard. _”Du bist en kleiner Dieg, nicht wahr?”_

“I don’t think you have any room to be calling me a thief.” Graves had no idea how _Gellert Grindelwald_ could see Credence when no one else could or what he had stolen, but he wasn’t going to let that on. 

“I wore that face too long for you to lie to me with it,” Grindelwald chided lightly. “You don’t know, do you?”

“What don’t I know?” Graves growled. The other man’s delight at knowing something Graves didn’t was insufferable. 

Grindelwald spread his hands on the plain wooden table. “Since you brought me such an interesting little puzzle to chew over in my solitary hours, I’ll be generous. I’ll answer a question if you do.” 

“Fine.” 

“You ask first.” Grindelwald gestured to him with regal magnanimity. Graves wanted to scream.

“Why am I a thief?” 

“I seem to have spent too long in your head. Enough that some of my Sight seems to have bled over. At least when it comes to ghosts.” Grindelwald gave a Gallic shrug. “And then of course, you died. Which must have helped matters.” 

“What?”

“Come now, Percy. Dying is a spectrum. You died a lot in my care. Not enough to stay dead, of course. But enough that I had to restart your heart.” There was nothing pleasant on Grindelwald’s face now. “It got difficult near the end. You were so very stubborn.”

“What’s your question?” Graves’ hands had started to tremble and he put them behind his back to still them, keep them out of Grindelwald’s sight. 

“No thank you? It’s a very rare gift I’ve gi--”

_”What is your question?”_

Grindelwald’s smile was beatific. “Have you found my present yet?”

 

MACUSA had torn New York City apart. The ports, the railways, the ruins of the Second Salemer Church. Tenement houses, the smoke-choked repair tunnels of the subway. Every office in the Woolworth Building on both the wizarding and No-Maj sides. Graves’ home-- and no one dared to ask about the piles of scorched book spines in the heart. Or the empty bottle of brandy. 

They’d found nothing. Maybe there was nothing to find. Maybe Gellert Grindelwald was entertaining himself by making them dance, even from his lakewater prison. Maybe he had misdirected them, sent them chasing hares while something worse happened unnoticed. Maybe they’d just failed. 

Again. 

Graves collapsed into the chair in his office. It was full dark outside; he could feel the weight of the hour and its coldness even three stories underground. The Magical Exposure Clock still ticked calmly, unaware of any gift that might disturb its composure. 

Silver shimmered and the boy stood in front of him, just on the other side of the desk. He was so much closer than he’d ever come before. 

“Why are you here?” Graves asked in exhaustion. “You heard him. Whatever you want, I can’t give it to you. I’m barely more alive than you are and hell, now I’ve got a piece of him inside me. My own Aurors couldn’t tell us apart even before. Now we must be nearly identical. 

He leaned his head in a hand, fingers pushing into his hair and making it fall loosely to either side. The pomade wasn’t holding after the swamp fog of Caribou Island, the hours of searching. All he wanted to do was go home and get drunk enough that he stayed asleep through his nightmares.

For the first time in a month, Credence Barebone spoke.

“I don’t think you are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is from Keats' Ode to a Nightingale. This may be the bitterest Graves I have ever written, guys. Let me know what you think in the comments or hit me up at https://maggieandthedragon.tumblr.com/


	2. Something Like

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Graves poured for Credence as well. The brandy barely covered the bottom of the glass in a stark contrast to Graves’ own plentiful serving. It didn’t matter. Credence wasn’t going to drink it anyway in the same way that he wasn’t actually sitting in the chair across from Graves. In the same way he was only something like human. 
> 
> In the same way that they both were. 
> 
> It was nice, though. If they were nothing but simulacra, living in worlds and lives and skins that felt foreign, at least they couldn’t fall short of each other’s expectations. If they were only something like human, then they could still be something like friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This and chapter 3 were originally supposed to be one chapter, and then it ended up being very long!

Ghosts, perhaps unsurprisingly, made for undemanding houseguests. Credence made no mess, ate no food and seemed content with silence when Graves wanted to drink rather than talk. 

He came home in late January in one of those moods, threw his coat too far for the animated coat rack to reach on his way to the couch and his brandy. 

“Oh, leave it, will you?” he snapped at it when it creaked and groaned like an oak tree under high winds, awkwardly adjusting itself to try and reach the floor. He unbuttoned his suit and reached for the snifter only for his fingers to close around empty air. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” he snarled and reached around for the other snifter on the far side of the decanter. 

Credence had slipped into the house, moving impossibly through Graves’ thickly layered wards. He observed the coat on the floor, the creaking coat rack, and the four fingers of brandy already in Graves’ glass before sitting down in one of the chairs across from him. Credence liked to sit, Graves had observed. He wasn’t corporeal; presumably it wasn’t any more relaxing than standing, but...maybe it made him feel more human. Less dead. 

“Why don’t you buy a new one?” he asked quietly, voice barely a susurrus. 

“I don’t want a new one,” Graves answered and he knew, he knew he was being petulant. “I want the one he broke.” 

“I don’t want to be dead, either,” Credence said. 

They sat in silence for a long moment before Graves took his wand out of his waistcoat pocket and closed his eyes. He thought about the leaded crystal, the delicate etching on the base, the way the vanilla and spice of the brandy clung to it even when the glasses were empty. He thought about the velvet-lined box they had come in, with the note from his father. _The Director of Magical Security doesn’t drink out of plain glass._ He thought about handing the glass through the Floo to Theseus at midnight; his sister coughing, eyes watering, when she’d stolen a sip and her husband laughing in his soft bass voice.

“ _Geminio_ ,” he murmured and the glass blurred, doubled and tugged itself apart. He’d Multiplied the brandy too without thinking and he glanced at it, shrugged and then placed it on the coffee table in front of Credence. 

“I can’t drink,” Credence said. 

“I know,” Graves answered. “Keep me company anyway.”

 

There seemed to be no rhyme or reason as to when Credence was there. Sometimes he appeared around breakfast and those were days that Graves caught himself making toast or oatmeal or frying two eggs in some sort of perverse attempt to seem less broken than he obviously was. 

The day...tended to go better when he did eat though. Maybe he would try it even on the days Credence didn’t appear until noon or later. 

Sometimes Credence appeared earlier, so silent he didn’t disturb even Graves’ restless slumber and he woke on sweat-damp sheets to see him sitting in the corner. In early March, he woke screaming from a nightmare that oscillated between screaming pain and treacherously pleasant numbness and a voice he couldn’t place calling _Mr. Graves. Mr. Graves!_

“Mr. Graves.” Credence shone silver over him, distressed enough that he’d forgotten to obey the laws of physics that no longer constrained his body. He stood mid-thigh in the mattress, one hand extended towards him. As if he’d forgotten he couldn’t touch. 

“Shit.” Graves sat up, heart hammering. Faint moonlight shone in through the window, limning everything with the same silvery glow that Credence always had. 

Most other men would have filled the silence that fell, asked something vapid, insipid. _Did you have a nightmare?_ as if they hadn’t just borne witness to the screaming terror of it. 

Credence stood silent.

“You call me Mr. Graves?” Graves finally rasped.

“I. You told me-- I mean. He told me--” Credence fell silent. “Yes.”

Graves flinched. “Percival. If you called him Mr. Graves, then I want to be Percival to you,” he said and hated that he didn’t know if he was ceding his name to the fascist bastard or taking part of it back. 

“Percival,” Credence echoed in agreement. 

A flick of Graves’ fingers called his wristwatch to him. Five-thirty. Only an hour before when he normally would wake anyway and there was no possibility of getting back to sleep. He may as well get up. He’d have time to make and eat an actual breakfast at his leisure, see if he could head off the dark way this day had begun. 

He slid out of bed and went into the bathroom, switching the shower on to hot as he stripped. It didn’t help that he couldn’t telling the difference between his own nightmares and Grindelwald’s Sight. It had happened only once-- waking from a dream that had left him curled in on himself, body aching from a phantom knife into his guts. He hadn’t remembered being stabbed, but he didn’t remember a lot of what Grindelwald had done to him. 

It was probably a good thing. 

Water rained down around him, leeching the chill out of his limbs. It hadn’t been until Graves stood over the body of a murdered witch and recognized the pattern of wounds on her stomach, until he had _recognized her brother_ with a chill of panic and pain that wasn’t his own that he realized what had happened. He’d pulled one of Aurors aside, muttered _Grill him_ in her ear and then stumbled outside into an alley to throw up toast and bitter black coffee until his stomach was finally, mercifully empty. 

He switched the water off and pushed his wet hair back from his face, stepping out into the bathroom proper to shave. He soaked the brush, build a lather in the small glass bowl he kept for the purpose. He’d stopped taking the Sleeping Draughts after they’d arrested the brother for murder. So it meant he couldn’t sleep. So it meant that when he did, his sleep was haunted by the searing pain of tortures he barely remembered, that he’d only seen reenacted on himself _by_ himself in the eerily perfect third person of a Pensieve. It was worth the chance of hearing someone cry out for help.

He wiped the stray bits of lather off his face, rinsed the bowl off and went to get dressed, scrubbing at his still-damp hair with the towel. 

“I-- Mr.--- Percival!”

Graves hadn’t realized that ghosts could _blush,_ but as much as Credence was resolutely looking away, he could see the silvery shimmer over his cheeks intensify and grow denser. 

“You _are_ in my bedroom,” he pointed out. Graves was tired enough to be shameless and frankly, if he had to worry about about a ghost’s sense of decorum every time he showered, shaved or used the toilet, this was going to be a long lifetime. Moreover. Credence hadn’t moved yet, still thigh-deep in his mattress and Graves arched an eyebrow. “And literally _in_ my bed.” 

Credence disappeared in a huff. 

Graves couldn’t help but notice the foreign feeling of a smile spreading across his lips as he dressed. 

 

In mid-April, they began coordinating with the German MagiRegierung to transfer Gellert Grindelwald. Sicherheitsdirektor Patrick Fichte-- because God forbid the Germans use more than one word for anything when they could just smash things together instead-- had made his preferences clear. Graves was to be involved in no capacity whatsoever. 

“It’s a matter of security, after all,” he had said delicately, gesturing and seemingly entirely unaware of the silvery woman in his wake, missing an arm with eyes like Fichte’s. His sister? He vaguely remembered reading the Direktor’s file. “And while MACUSA may be more than content to accept this story of Imperius Curses and...unwilling coercion, we understand Gellert Grindelwald’s persuasive capacities. We, after all, have had to accept the fact that domestic cells operate within our country.” 

“This _story_?” Graves could see Picquery’s warning glance but he was seething already. “Are you suggesting I agreed to this? That I let him--”

Fichte raised his hands. “Of course not, Director Graves, but security is paramount. We must be cautious to avoid losing valuable assets--”

“And this has nothing to do with your sister who took a landmine in the War.”

 _”Was zum Teufel machen Sie?”_ Fichte exploded.

“The same kind of baseless accusations you seem hellbent on making.”

“Graves!” Picquery snapped.

He fell silent, gritting his teeth.

“Sicherheitsdirektor, you have my most sincere apologies. Assistant Director Sophia McIlvain will coordinate the transfer with you,” Picquery said calmly. 

“Madam President, this is ludicrous. You don’t actually--”

“Go home, Graves,” she said. “I would think, after what you’ve been through, that you’d be relieved to delegate handling Grindelwald.” It was a sop to his dignity. Picquery was offering him a way for him to leave with grace rather than be thrown out like a child. 

Graves had enough common sense to take it, though apparating home in the afternoon was frustrating. Snatching up the brandy snifter-- his fingers no longer jarring on empty air-- with daylight pouring in through the brownstone’s windows felt pathetic. Felt Broken. 

It didn’t stop Graves from drinking and by the time Credence appeared again in his living room, he’d lowered the level in the glass from four fingers to two. Clearly, a much more respectable level of self-medication. 

He poured for Credence as well. The brandy barely covered the bottom of the glass in a stark contrast to Graves’ own plentiful serving. It didn’t matter. Credence wasn’t going to drink it anyway in the same way that he wasn’t actually sitting in the chair across from Graves. In the same way he was only something like human. 

In the same way that they both were. 

It was nice, though. If they were nothing but simulacra, living in worlds and lives and skins that felt foreign, at least they couldn’t fall short of each other’s expectations. If they were only something like human, then they could still be something like friends. Couldn’t they? Graves chuckled into his glass. The brandy had to be going to his head. 

Credence arched an eyebrow inquisitively. 

“Nothing,” he said. “It’s just...good to have company.”

“Such as it is,” Credence said. 

“Such as it is,” Graves echoed. They sat in silence again for awhile before a question occurred to him. “Where do you go? When you’re not with me?” 

“I don’t know. Nowhere. I’m here and then I’m not here.” 

Graves cocked his head to one side, gestured with the glass. “It doesn’t bother you?” 

Credence laughed. The sound was thin and bitter, nearly spectral. “I don’t think my alternatives are any better, Percival.” 

“Hell?” 

“Hell.” Credence’s brittle laughter again. Graves found himself wondering what it would sound like sincere. “Though I suppose this doesn’t lack in poetic justice.” 

The daylight still seeping through the bay window lent warm copper tinges to Credence’s silvery skin, making the look of mute pain on his face starkly visible. He looked...tormented, as cliche as the idea of a tormented ghost must be. If Graves was something like human, if they were something like friends, they he could force himself out of his brandy and his bitterness long enough to offer something more than silence. 

“How so?” he asked. 

“I got away from her,” Credence gestured around. “I...I’m not foggy any more. I think more clearly; I remember things better. I got away; I _died_ and God, you would think that would be some sort of freedom but--” 

The flow of words stopped as abruptly as they’d started and Credence looked away. A living man’s chest would be heaving, breath coming hard. Credence---Credence lost track of physics and put his hand through the arm of the chair. 

“But--” Graves prompted. He sensed there was more. 

“But I’m here. With you,” Credence said and then cringed as he was expecting Graves to take offense, to lash out. “I’m sorry. That was...ungrateful; you’ve been nothing but polite. But every time I appear, it’s with you. I don’t-- I don’t know why. I thought I died _hating_ you; I thought I died--” He broke off and he was laughing bitterly again, words pouring out disjointed. It was hard for Graves to follow. “Why am I worried about sin now? I died hating myself for not being strong enough to hurt you back. And now I can’t get away from you.” 

He cringed, amended. “Him. I’m sorry. That’s..that’s not fair.” 

“It’s alright.” No. No, it wasn’t but there was no way to untangle that mess. His face would always hurt Credence, would always be two-thirds Gellert Grindelwald and only one third his own. Graves couldn’t change that, in the same way he couldn’t change that Credence was trapped in his wake, drifting from MACUSA to the brownstone and back again. 

Well. _That_ he could change. 

“I can’t change that you’re stuck with me,” he said finally. “But I _can_ change where I go. So…” He gestured. “I have the evening off. Where would you like to spend it?” 

“Really?” Credence finally looked at him again and the expression of delighted surprise was a balm after the bitter despair that had twisted the ghost’s face earlier. “I--I don’t know. I lived here in this city as long as I can remember but--” Credence bit his lip. “Your friend. The one with the red hair and the nice accent. Where is he from?”

“London.” 

“If...if I was a friend of yours too. From London or somewhere else. If I didn’t know the city and I’d come to visit you. Where would you take me?” 

Graves started to smile. “I know just the place.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Where do you think they're going? Let me know in the comments or hit me up at https://maggieandthedragon.tumblr.com/
> 
> Next chapter is going up presently!


	3. A Very Close Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Credence had come close, closer than he had ever come before and Graves noticed with faint surprise-- after checking to ensure the boy wasn’t floating off the floor-- that Credence was his height if not taller. The opalescent shine of him-- his skin, his limbs, his clothes-- gave Credence an alabaster quality, like the luminous statues of the Emperor’s lovers that Graves had seen one day in the Met. He wondered what color his eyes had been in life. 
> 
> He swallowed. “What kind of friend would you like to be?” 
> 
> “A close one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, the next chapter!
> 
> CN: implications of internalized homophobia, but very mild

They walked to Central Park rather than apparating. It was a little too early for dinner yet and the weather was fair enough for the walk to be pleasant as they passed through the stone gate and into the park. The day was slowly fading, sending coppery light filtering through the freshly budded trees. 

“I have in fact been to Central Park,” Credence told him. 

“We’re not exactly going to Central Park,” Graves answered as they followed the reservoir and skirted the Great Lawn. “You know Belvedere Castle?”

“The folly?” Credence asked. 

“Exactly. But there’s a bit more to it than that.” The space wasn’t just something like a castle, putting on Gothic airs despite being one continent too far and several centuries too late. It was also-- if you knew the right way to bypass its Muggle-repelling Charm, the site of the best wizarding restaurant in New York City. At least for those brave enough to admit that the Merovici’s culinary genius was only upheld by a generous helping of nostalgia.

“Well. It’s not like I can leave.” Credence’s voice was so quiet, so dry that Graves had to stop and look at him for a moment before he saw the very faint smile on the ghost’s lips. 

“Fair enough. But I’m not leading you astray.” They climbed the steps to the top of Vista Rock, passing into the castle. Graves stopped just before an entryway and gestured to the transom where a bronze cockatrice flared its wings.“When it was built, this was a billiards club called the Cockatrice, but it was bought out a couple years ago and rebuilt. Now---” and he tapped his wand on the circle created by the curled creature’s tail. “Welcome to the _Saint-Sernin_.”

“What?” he heard Credence murmur behind him as they stepped inside and the No-Maj world faded away. The Saint-Sernin made the most of its location; all of its walls were charmed to be transparent, looking out over the Great Lawn and Belvedere Lake. Bluebell flames flickered in mercury-glass globes on every linen-draped table. Conversation hummed and bubbled in the background. Someone opened a bottle of champagne and Graves could smell fresh bread and wine. 

_”Vous vous ressemblez à votre nom ce soir, M. Graves. Même plus que la normale,”_ and Dominique Gaultier, the owner of the Saint-Sernin came to greet him. She was dark-haired, slender and tall for a woman, barely needing to tilt her head up to kiss him on either cheek. “ _Qu’est-ce qui vous est arrivé?”_

_”Rien de grave. Bonsoir, Domi.”_ He returned the greeting. _”J’ai pas de réservation. Il vous reste une place?”_

_”Pour vous? Toujours.”_ She showed him to a small table in the corner that looked northwest across the park and beyond that to the city slowly beginning to come alive with electric light. _Vous buvez quelque chose?_ ”

_”Un kir étoilé,”_ Graves asked as he took his seat. It was a showier drink than he usually ordered--luminously purple and sparkling like the night sky. But Credence couldn’t drink, couldn’t taste. The least he could do was order something that was visually appealing. 

“You speak French?” Credence asked as he slid into the chair across from him. 

“Learned it in the War. Met Domi there too. She was a recon witch; flew some missions for us. She and her brother moved here a few years ago.” He shrugged. “Rumor has it that she duelled the former owners for the right to buy this place. I’d believe it.”

“And German. You knew what-- you knew that _he_ was calling you a thief.” 

“And Latin. My parents insisted that any wizard worth his salt needed it for spellcraft and any Graves destined for high office needed at least two of the European languages.”

“They were right, weren’t they?” Credence asked. 

“I suppose.”

“I suppose they always are.” 

The cocktail arrived before Graves could say anything more, followed by a floating quill and parchment rather than a waiter-- Domi must have judged that Graves wanted to be alone. 

Credence was looking out the floor to ceiling window at the city beyond when he’d finished. “How did you put it all back together?” he asked. “I know...I know what I did.” For a moment, he flinched and for a moment Graves saw what Tina described-- _He wants so desperately to be good, Mr. Graves_ \-- in the ghost’s face. “I let it go. I let it loose; I know I did. I didn’t...imagine it would do so much harm.” 

“We have teams of Restorers and Obliviators,” Graves answered and quietly omitted the fact that some of the Obliviators had been working not only to find whoever the Thunderbird-induced rainstorm had missed but also to create fake memories to account for the No-Majs who had died. He waited for a moment, then spoke again. “And if your mother _was_ right about you, it’s because she made you that way.” 

“Does it matter why a monster is a monster?”

“That’s the difference between murder and manslaughter.” 

“Both are sins.” 

“Then nearly every man I know is damned. We all fought.” 

“You _are_ a witch, Percival,” Credence said as if that settled anything. 

They were silent for a moment. Credence examined the _kir étoilé_. A plate drifted over and settled itself in front of Graves with his first course and only then did he finally speak.” “It’s white wine and violet liqueur with _Lumos_ \--the spell for light--imbued into it,” he said, gesturing to the cocktail. “Traditionally, it would be creme de cassis, but Domi’s from Toulouse and insists on making it her own way.”

“And that?” Credence asked about the appetizer, seemingly as grateful for Graves for a change of topic. 

“Foie gras _torchon_ on toasted baguette-- I think the sauce is cognac and fig?” 

“...and fig is a fruit?” Credence asked, one eyebrow quirked so high that Graves couldn’t help but chuckle. 

“That is the politest way I have ever been told that I’m an elitist old man and need to explain.” 

“I--I didn’t mean--!” Credence blushed again, silver thickening and shining reflecting faintly blue from the mercury-glass flame on the table. It lit up his face somehow and changed it from from a closed wariness to a shy curiosity that was charming. Almost endearing. 

“Either way. Yes. Fig is a fruit.” Graves talked as he ate, explaining the appetizer first and then the main course when it arrived: duck confit, fingerling potatoes sauteed in the same fat, mixed green salad and a tart vinaigrette. The whole of it was served with a chilled glass of a local, faintly sparkling white wine that Domi imported from her hometown. 

“It’s called Picpoul, though Domi assures me it has nothing to do with chickens,” Graves noted as he leaned back in his chair. 

“Poul? Like poultry. Is that where the word comes from?” Credence asked. 

Graves nodded. 

Credence laughed softly and while the bitterness hadn’t left his voice, it was softer, more resigned. “There’s so much--- I’d never--” He trailed off and glanced out the window at the city again. “I like the lights. Is that why you come here?” 

“The food too, but the view is amazing,” Graves agreed. He followed the other man’s gaze, the electric lights now starkly visible in the darkness. “It’s so different from where I grew up. I never thought I’d get used to it when I first moved here.” 

“Where did you grow up?” 

“My family’s manor in Upstate New York. Nearly in the Catskills,” Graves answered. Domi’s enchantments had returned again with a dessert menu. While he didn’t particularly have a sweet tooth, it was rare for him to have company-- such as it was-- so he let himself by tempted by a glass of Sauternes to close out the meal. 

“In the mountains?” 

“Just at the base of Samuel’s Point-- the house was designed so that when you came up the drive, you could see the oaks, the house and the mountain in the background. You could travel for miles without running into anyone else. Not like this-- everyone piled up on top of each other.” 

“That sounds beautiful,” Credence answered. “Quiet.” 

“It is.” Graves cocked his head to one side. “Huh. I wonder if you could follow me there. It’s warded against apparition, but then again so is MACUSA.” 

“I’d like that,” Credence admitted. “...would you let me?” 

“Of course,” Graves answered before he could think and just, just for a moment, he was startled by his own sincerity. “I. Ah. It’s not like I can stop you, after all.” 

Domi’s magic had impeccable timing, interrupting at just that moment to deliver the glass of Sauternes and the check. Graves left the check be for the moment and sat with the Sauternes, letting it roll over his tongue and humming faintly in pleasure. 

“You’re enjoying that,” Credence observed. 

“I am. Did you want to--” Graves started to slide the glass over to him and then winced. “Sorry.” 

“It’s fine,” Credence shrugged. “No helping. But...tell me what it tastes like?” 

“It’s a dessert wine, so it’s sweet,” Graves answered. He took a sip of the Sauternes and pulled a bit of air into his mouth, rolling it around. “Honey and…stone fruit? Peach or apricot maybe. Sweet spices--cinnamon and vanilla and it’s thick. Not quite syrupy but full-bodied. The kind of wine you nurse all evening and then fall asleep on the couch.” 

Credence smiled sadly. “That sounds nice,” he said. 

Merlin. Not being able to taste, to touch, to feel. To be so estranged from yourself. Graves had known it for a period of months, his senses muted by the Imperius Curse, but there’d always been the chance of winning them back, even when he’d despaired. To be deprived of them eternally…

“I’m sorry,” he said, chest strangely tight and he reached for the bill. It surprised him at first, the relative paucity of the sum he owed until he remembered. Of course. Credence hadn’t ordered anything. “You’re a cheap date,” he commented as he counted out the requisite number of Dragots. 

“Your date?” Credence echoed. “I--what kind of friend am I supposed to be, Percival?”

Graves had finished the last of the Sauternes; honeyed apricot lingered on his tongue as he stood to go. Credence had come close, closer than he had ever come before and Graves noticed with faint surprise-- after checking to ensure the boy wasn’t floating off the floor-- that Credence was his height if not taller. The opalescent shine of him-- his skin, his limbs, his clothes-- gave Credence an alabaster quality, like the luminous statues of the Emperor’s lovers that Graves had seen one day in the Met. He wondered what color his eyes had been in life. 

He swallowed. “What kind of friend would you like to be?” 

“A close one.”

Maybe it was a rash decision, but Graves made it anyway. If he couldn’t give Credence taste or touch, then he would give him sound and well-- the boy _did_ possess the utmost in discretion after all. How was he going to tell the people who could neither hear nor see him that Graves had brought him somewhere salacious?

“If we were very close friends, I’d take you to a jazz club,” he murmured. 

“I’d like that. Very much,” Credence answered and Graves wasn’t sure if he meant the music or something else entirely. 

 

Even on a Thursday evening, Duke’s jazz club in the Village hummed with life. The club was close and dim and the low thrum of a double bass mingled with conversation, guided the bodies on the hardwood dance floor. 

“I’ve never heard music like this before,” Credence said as they made their way to a table facing the band and sat. It was still condensation-marked from its previous occupants, cigarette butt still faintly glowing in the ashtray, sending a thin trail of smoke curling into the air. 

“My unit ran into the Harlem Hellfighters during the war. Their band played jazz rather than marches or anything like that.” Graves gestured to the stage where the cornet sobbed and jumped from note to note. “That’s entirely improvised. The motifs of the song, the key, the rhythm-- still fitting all of it perfectly but entirely off the cuff. It’s astonishing. To know the rules of your genre so perfectly that you can slip in and out of them like that. Break them all to pieces and then put them back together.”

Credence was looking at him and Graves felt heat flush into cheeks already warm with alcohol. 

“What?” 

“I like watching you talk about things you care about,” Credence said. “Food. Music. Your cases at MACUSA.”

“I--” Graves wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that but he could feel his flush deepen.

“You’re blushing.” 

“I am.” 

Credence gave him a small, rare smile and shifted back to look at the band. The cornet slid smoothly back into the melody of the song. On the dance floor in front of them, a tall blond man swept his mustachioed partner into a dip, legs extended, toes pointed, motion and momentum and grace. 

Graves was warm and a little bit loose from alcohol- brandy, kir, Picpoul, Sauternes. God, if he was his own junior Auror he’d chide himself for sloppiness, but he felt good for perhaps the first time in months. To have had a good meal in pleasant company, with a friend, a _close_ friend if Credence wanted. To be wine-flushed and warm while a cornet sang the blues on stage. 

It felt very much like being happy. 

Maybe that was why he didn’t notice Credence’s growing distress at first. They hadn’t been there long-- for one song, maybe two. The glowing embers of the cigarette butt hadn’t yet faded into the darkness and the ghost’s gaze had shifted from the band to the dancers, men intertwined, coming apart and moving back together as the cymbal tapped out the syncopated beat. 

“Percival. Percival, I’d like to leave,” and Credence’s voice was shaking. He was _vibrating_ , like he was about to disappear but was fighting tooth and nail not to. 

“Of course,” Graves stood immediately to head for the door. The club had gotten more crowded even in the handful of minutes since they’d arrived and he found himself having to squeeze past the throng around the bar. He reached for Credence’s elbow to guide him through on sheer instinct. 

His hand went numb and passed through his flesh like the boy wasn’t even there.

When they were outside, Credence wheeled around to face him. “Why would you take me there?” he demanded and he was _vibrating_ , like he was about to disappear but was fighting tooth and nail not to. 

_Shit._ Had he miscalculated so badly? He’d not thought that Credence would object; Grindelwald’s crassly casual descriptions of how he’d lured the boy had made Credence’s predilections clear enough, he had thought. But if the No-Maj world excelled at anything, it was self-hatred and for the first time, Graves considered what it might be like to spend the rest of his life haunted by a boy who thought he was a sinner. 

“Credence, homosexuality isn’t...frowned upon in my world,” Graves began, but the ghost didn’t let him finish. 

“Don’t you think I know that?” Credence’s voice was distressed, frantic and nearly shouting. “Don’t you think that was half the point? Half the reason I wanted so badly to be part of it? You think you didn’t tell me that when you kissed me?” 

“I’m sorry,” Graves said. He couldn’t even bristle at the conflation, insist that he had done no such thing, never kissed Credence, never--

“I loved him; I would have done _anything_ for him and I died hating myself for it.” Credence was standing so close, body still vibrating, face a rictus of pain and grief. “And then you’re you and you’re not him; you’re kinder and more thoughtful and I told myself that you weren’t like me and--- and then you brought me here.” 

He gestured helplessly at the club where the men still danced inside, at Greenwich Village in general. “I could have had you. I could have been in a world where it wasn’t a sin to have you and…” He laughed bitterly, brokenly. “I can’t feel. I can’t taste Sauternes. I can’t hold you, can’t dance with you, can’t…” 

“Credence.” Graves reached for him almost by instinct even though he knew he couldn’t touch him, that his hand would go right through, but what else could he do?

Credence surged forward and kissed him. It was pressureless cold static and it made his lips go numb with pins and needles. Still, Graves kissed back as best he could, reached up to brush the young man’s hair. His fingers went numb as well, like he’d plunged them into ice water, but…that was all he could feel and he knew it was still likely more than Credence had been able to. 

The ghost broke the kiss and vanished with a scream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave it to Graves to use "vous" with someone he's fought with. Man wouldn't recognize an informal relationship if it bit him. 
> 
> Let me know what you think in the comments or hit me up at https://maggieandthedragon.tumblr.com/


	4. Lightning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Credence’s fingers went down his sternum and over his ribs, tracing a path across his naked skin like ice. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “Dying hurts.”
> 
> “But I didn’t,” he said again and he could hear Grindelwald’s nearly cheerful voice. _Dying is a spectrum,_ but he hadn’t died. He’d lived, scars and all, nightmares and all. He’d lived and risen from a hospital bed with scars on his skin and the Sight in his brain and the ghost of a beautiful boy dogging his steps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter was also much longer than I anticipated, but there wasn't any neat place to split it. Also officially, the weirdest sex scene I have ever written. Coming up with the tags for this one was...interesting.
> 
> CN: minor character death, mild descriptions of gore, references to torture, lots of scars.

“So a little bird told me you were seen at the Saint-Sernin talking to yourself?” Theseus was dressed to sleep, pajama pants hanging on his hips and chest exposed. It must have been close to midnight in London for him to wait and call Graves via Floo after work. 

Graves sighed and lowered himself to the floor in front of the fire. “By which you mean, someone from the Woolworth saw me and Queenie Goldstein took it out of their head. Queenie told Tina; Tina told Newt; Newt told you. Am I right?” 

Theseus spread his hands. “I just want to know what you were drinking and where can I get some,” he teased, but his skin gave his worry away. 

Thes’ tattoo was empathic, tied to his soul and his magic-- a lion that played and napped and roamed most of the time, flames wrapped around his forearm when he fought or concentrated or that dripped down his skin when he wanted to touch and be touched. But when he was worried, it settled on his back as a golden eagle, wings spread wide like the shield he wanted to be. Graves could just see the tips of its feathers brushing either side of his deltoid. 

“Bird on your back says otherwise,” he pointed. “I told you, that thing is as good as Veritaserum.” 

“I make it a rule not to get interrogated naked.” Theseus reached for him through the green flames. His hand was shockingly warm, nearly overwhelming after two weeks of Credence’s company. It made Graves start and Theseus lifted his hand immediately, palm open, good intentions. “I’m sorry. Was that--”

 _He thought this was about Grindelwald_ and it made something roar in rage and grief in Graves’ chest that his best friend, who he’d carried and been carried by through the War, was afraid to touch him. 

“You’re fine, Thes. It’s not him. Well. Not directly. And...and I haven’t gone mad. I haven’t, I promise,” Graves glanced through the flames at him. Thes-- Thes would believe him, wouldn’t he? Thes, who had slept in his guest room for two months straight, in his bed some nights when the nightmares got too bad?

“I believe you,” Theseus said and his hand settled back on top of Graves. “Will you tell me?” 

Graves did. Credence’s ghost. Gellert Grindelwald and the Sight. The kiss too. 

Credence had reappeared a few hours afterward as Graves sat on the couch in front of the fire, slowly sobering, still shell-shocked by the wounds that Credence had torn open on them both. The boy had laid down on the couch next to him, his head on his thigh spreading chill through his leg.

“Why couldn’t you have found me first?” he’d asked softly. 

“I’m sorry,” Graves had answered and slid his fingers into his hair, stroking where the short-cropped locks should have brushed against his skin until his fingers were white and bloodless with cold. 

They’d fallen into a pattern these last few weeks. Credence appeared haphazardly but no longer kept his distance. Graves had grown to look forward to the feeling of his hand going numb as Credence took it. It was comforting and bittersweet and not even close to what either of them wanted. 

Theseus sighed after he heard all of it. “I believe you,” he said and Graves felt the ice that had settled around his spine start to thaw. “But I have to ask. How did you See that woman’s murder if you were taking Sleeping--” 

Theseus must have seen the answer flicker on Graves’ face. “You stopped taking them,” the Brit concluded.

“Yes.” 

“Goddamnit, Perce.” Theseus pushed a hand through his hair and exhaled in noisy frustration. “Who are you going to help if you’re so tired you can’t see straight?” 

“Who am I going to help if I can’t See?” 

“All of the people you’ve helped before this happened. You’re the single best Auror I know,” Theseus told him. “You don’t need the Sight and you certainly don’t need to put yourself through your nightmares because of it.” 

“It’s worth it.” Graves knew he was being stubborn but...how could live with possibly missing something like that?

“Will you take a half a dose at least?” Theseus was nearly pleading as he rubbed at his temples. “Enough to let you sleep, block most of the dreams?”

The Brit looked tired, more so than the hour would have warranted, so unlike his best friend, his wartime lover who could drink all night and still come to bed eager. It was the same face, same disheveled copper hair, but the green eyes were framed by the beginning of crow’s feet. He hadn’t had them ten years ago. He hadn’t had them until six months ago, when Graves had woken in a hospital bed to find Theseus uncomfortably asleep in the chair next to his bed. 

“Alright.” Graves conceded. “I don’t want you to worry.” 

“Can’t help it,” Theseus answered wryly. He’d been reassured though. The tattoo bled over his shoulder, formed a lion sleeping over his heart. “I got a double dose of the trait. My brother doesn't do worry--- I have to for both of us.” 

“Hon?” came a plaintive voice from the darkened bedroom of Theseus’ flat.

“We’re keeping Caleb up,” Graves said. “I should let you get back to him. Send him my regards.” 

“I will.” Theseus squeezed his hand and stood. “And I’ll see what I can find out about ghosts and transferred Sight. Take care of yourself and please, _please_ call me whenever you need.” 

“I will,” Graves promised and ended the call. 

 

Graves had never thought he’d appreciate the humid heat of a New York summer, but as May wore into June and flirted with the beginning of July, he found himself leaving every window open and inviting the damp heat in. 

Credence no longer sat across from him when they drank together. His snifter, bottom barely coated with brandy sat next to Graves’ as it released its vanilla and spice bouquet into the dense air. Cicadas sang down the quiet street, echoing through the open windows, and the heat of the summer night softened the brutal cold of Credence’s arm against his. They spent nearly every evening like this, even as Theseus’ insistence that Graves take the Sleeping Draughts meant his own serving of brandy could finally diminish from four fingers to three. They sat; Graves drank. He told stories Credence stories of Ilvermorny and his family’s manor, gentler narratives from the War and his work. 

Credence told him stories too. He told them slowly, reluctantly and sometimes interspersed with the sort of vibrating grief and rage that could make him disappear. He talked about the sister he had killed and the sister he had lost. He remembered the grim reality of his life and Grindelwald’s dazzling promises. He talked about dying. Drifting and finally coming to what senses he had standing over the sleeping body of a man who couldn’t possibly be _his_ Mr. Graves. 

“I doubt it’s a consolation, but I knew,” Credence said softly. “You were so scarred; it couldn’t have been him.” 

Sight that bound them together; scars that marked them apart. But the boy’s first words had been to put his weight (spectral, weightless, _all that mattered_ ) on the scales of Graves’ soul and identity. 

_I don’t think you are, Mr. Graves._

“It is,” he said. He brushed his fingers, warm and sweat-damp against Credence’s and here, in the summer shadows of his house, with cicada song and brandy hanging in the air, the play of temperatures felt almost like pleasure. 

Or it did before he mind exploded in pain. 

_“You brought my book.” Grindelwald’s voice was nearly...warm? Fond?_

_“Yes, I brought your stupid, fascist book,” Graves’ voice-- not his voice-- someone else’s voice--was too high, too working class. Bronx?_

_“Did you finish it?” The man leaned forward, mismatched eyes alight._

_“No!” Graves felt--- god, he felt TJ Oakhurst’s indignation like it was his own, his loyalty and he couldn’t help but love the rookie Auror for it. “Why would I ever read anything you suggested, you son of a bitch? You wore my boss’s face; you lied to me; you--”_

_“A shame.” Grindelwald’s voice had gone cold and flat. “If you’d been a little more clever and a little less blind, you might have found my gift in it. I might even have let you live.”_

_“What? No!”_

_“Accio,” and the sound of ripping paper as a different wand-- not the hornbeam wand they had confiscated from him, but a different wand-- Elder?-- tore itself from the spine, reasserting its full size and strength. Screaming then. Screaming and a searing electrical pain that Graves knew in every aching bone and scar on his body._

He apparated to MACUSA before his vision had cleared. 

“Graves,” Picquery said as he appeared shoeless and in shirtsleeves in her private office. “What in hell’s bells--” 

“We need to get Aurors to Caribou Island,” he said. “Now.” 

 

Even in the height of summer, the water of Lake Superior was slate-grey and forbidding. Their brooms were covered with Dissimulation Charms, rendering them little more than heat shimmers against the starlit sky as they swept over the lake and headed towards Caribou Island. 

A _Societé_ witch drifted over to them. “That boat shouldn’t be out here,” she called, cupping her hands over her mouth to be heard over the rushing wind. The craft was barely visible; dark wood against dark water, running with nearly no lights. “Check it out. We’ll run ahead to Caribou Island, try and locate your Auror.” 

Graves nodded. “Hurry,” he said even though dread was curling into his stomach. He’d never been able to See anything that didn’t end in death. 

His squad landed lightly on the deck of the ship, shrinking their brooms so that they could be tucked away into pockets. 

“Engine’s still warm, sir,” Fletcher called from the rear of the boat. Her _Lumos_ charm bobbed at the tip of her wand as she examined it. 

“Well, whoever it is didn’t swim out of here. Keep an eye out-- Dissimulation, Notice-Me-Not.” He scanned his eyes over the deck of the boat, naming his Aurors in turn, full names, forcing himself to focus past the magic glossing that a Notice-Me-Not could provide. Sophia Morgan McIlvain. The faintly silvery outline of Credence Barebone. Septima Fletcher. Merrill Grey, their Canadian _SRS_ escort. A faint shift in the darkness down by the stern. Porpentina Goldstein. 

“Percival!”

Graves didn’t think; didn’t breathe. He heard Credence’s voice and his Shield Spell snapped up opaque and luminous, mere inches in front of the lightning bolt. Wood vaporized. White sparks flew. When Graves’ vision cleared, Gellert Grindelwald had uncloaked himself from the drifting mist. 

Merrill Grey floated in the water, scorched from chest to throat, blood leaking into the water. The lightning bolt had burnt a hole in the hull and they were taking on water. Sophie and Tina fired and Grindelwald snapped up his own shield in return. 

Septima ducked out of the way; the retreat strategic as she fired red sparks into the air. They seared through clear sky, bright and shining and impossible to ignore, calling back the recon teams to pile more fire, more magic on this man who had killed an Auror and nearly torn New York City apart. 

“You’re growing inconvenient, little thief,” Grindelwald growled at Graves.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have killed me so much.”

White lightning ripped out of Grindelwald’s wand. Graves caught it on the Shield Spell and let it push him back. His feet touched dry wood and he forced the electric charge down and into the cold lake water. 

A Shield Spell focused on magic. Men in the war had modified them for bullets; some even for mustard gas. Not conducted electricity. Grindelwald snarled in pain as the lightning sizzled back around him, piercing through the Shield. The sulfur smell of burned hair, the copper of blood hung in the air and Graves couldn’t help the perverse wave of satisfaction at making his torturer taste his own lightning. 

More red sparks; the recon teams returning, zeroing in on the firefight and Graves felt the heavy weight of an anti-Disparition Field settle over their shoulders. Septima again. 

Grindelwald snarled. “Try harder,” he said and raised his wand. 

It felt like the entire lake moved and then there was nothing but water and movement and a frantic choking panic. The cold of Lake Superior hit him like Credence’s embrace, taking him fathoms deep. He spun and tumbled. His vision burst into black; part of the ship must have hit him. 

His body was screaming for air; unable to understand that drawing breath right now would only kill itself. There was something that change that. There was a spell. There was a spell and he knew it but his wand was…

There. Framed in the silvery light of Credence’s hands, sinking but visible a scant handful of yards away. _Accio,_ he thought distantly and curled his fingers around the slender wooden tool. 

His vision was greying at the edges. There was a spell and he knew it. 

Credence’s hands passed through his upper arms, nearly warm after the deep cold of the lake. The boy was vibrating, frantic, yelling, although no bubbles escaped his mouth. 

Bubbles. 

_Ebullio_ , he thought and could have wept in relief when a skin of air and magic formed over his mouth and nose. 

Lights shimmered on the surface above them as Graves started to swim. 

When he broke the surface, one of the recon teams had thrown balls of light out across the water, illuminating it as they searched. Another had expanded a piece of wreckage into a raft and were slowly helping a shivering Septima onto it. Sophie was already huddled there, mascaro streaked and a Warmth Spell slowly drying the lake water from her clothes. Tina had surfaced as well, waving as a Canadian wizard went to retrieve her. 

Graves pulled himself onto the raft, teeth chattering as the wind cut through his soaked clothing. 

“Where is he?” he coughed, pushing soaked black hair out his face. 

Septima shook her head. “I’m sorry, Graves. I lost hold of the Anti-Disparition Field when the wave hit.” 

_“Fuck.”_

“I don’t understand. How did you know?” Sophie asked and her voice sounded on the edge of tears. “How did you know that TJ was there? That Grindelwald was behind you.” 

“Because for once in his Godforsaken life, the man wasn’t lying when he said he’d given me the Sight,” Graves said hoarsely and they sat without talking in the black silence as the Canadians towed the raft back towards the shore. 

 

It was past midnight when the Chief Mediwizard found him in his office and told him in no uncertain terms to _go home and eat something, you ludicrous man._

Graves had made scrambled eggs and eaten them out of the pan. He sent it to the sink with a Charm to wash itself and went into the living room. He stood there for a long moment, looking at the two snifters, the decanter full of Dragon Barrel Brandy. 

TJ Oakhurst’s body had been unrecognizable when they’d found it, charred from the inside out by Gellert Grindelwald’s lightning. The _SRS_ had identified him through his wand-- dogwood and wampus hair, eleven inches and whippy. 

He should just take the Sleeping Draught. It would have to be a full portion-- there would be no way that the limited magic of a partial dose would keep the sight of that body out of his nightmares. So he forced himself to leave the brandy where it was and went upstairs to go to bed. 

He’d only reached the bedroom door when he walked _through_ the freshly manifested ghost of Credence Barebone. It was like being plunged back into the depths of Lake Superior. 

“Shit.” Graves started to shiver and waved his hand at the smaller fireplace across from his bed to light it. 

“You could have died,” Credence said. His voice was barely audible over the crackling of the fire.

“I didn’t,” Graves answered as he took off the shoes he had borrowed from Sophie and let the Transfiguration magic slip so they shifted back from his larger leather Oxfords to the smaller cream-and-crystal heels she had pulled out of her Space-Charmed pockets. 

“You could have. You nearly did.” 

Graves was removing his cufflinks when he noticed how shaken Credence was. He set the accessories down on his dresser and crossed the room to him. “But I didn’t,” he reminded him and he skimmed a hand over his arm, a reenactment of the comfort, of the touch he wanted to give. “You saw to that.”

“Barely.” Credence was vibrating with terror, as badly as Graves had ever seen it. “I couldn’t even move your wand for you. What if I wasn’t there? I don’t know what happens to me if you die--”

Graves kissed him. It was always a tricky enterprise; no way to tell by feel where his mouth was going. There had definitely been moments when he’d opened his eyes enough to realize that he’d drifted to the boy’s nose. But he didn’t know what else to do. 

“How do I make this better?” he asked softly, close against him. In the War, he and Theseus had held each other so tightly they’d felt each other’s pulses, breathed each other’s breath. “I can’t hold you; I can’t let you feel that I’m alive.” 

“Let me see.” Numbness shifted and spread against Graves’ lips, the only way he was sure that Credence was speaking. “Let me see you.” 

“Are you sure?” Graves asked even as he began to unknot his tie. “I’m not as...handsome as I used to be.” 

“I have scars too, Percival,” Credence said and he reached for the tie as he could undo it for him. “Please.” 

Graves swallowed and obeyed, setting aside his tie and then reaching for the top button of his shirt. There was something trance-like about it, watching Credence look at him in a way he couldn’t-- _didn’t_ anymore. 

Grindelwald had liked lightning. It had been the single moment Graves had seen him concede even an ounce of respect for No-Majs. _To look at the sky and want to tame it. To force Nature herself to concede to their Will. Such ambition, don’t you think, Percy? The one thing we ought to learn._

The Sight had come over him so suddenly he’d gone to MACUSA in shirtsleeves, nothing more. Sophie had lent him a pair of shoes but hadn’t had anything in her pockets to function as a jacket. It didn’t take long, then, for the scars to show. The Lichtenberg marks started at his wrists; the metal cuffs had been a good conductor after all. Copper-red lines snaked and branched, overlapping until they looked like gnarled bracken, a shattered mirror. There had been so much to heal and the scars were so complicated, so intertwined that the mediwizards had left them. 

“So…” Graves reached for bravado, filling the silence with facts. “They’re called Lichtenberg marks. You get them from lightning.” 

“Lots of lightning.” Credence said. He brushed his finger over one of the thicker lines, tracing it from his bicep, up and over his deltoid, then down across his heart. “How didn’t it kill you?” 

“It did.” The chill made a shiver go down his spine, made his mouth go dry a little as Graves imagined having Credence here in person. He flicked two fingers at the fire and it burnt higher, hotter, filling the room with warmth. “If Grindelwald is to be believed, I died a lot.” 

Credence’s fingers went down his sternum and over his ribs, tracing a path like ice. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “Dying hurts.”

“But I didn’t,” he said again and he could hear Grindelwald’s nearly cheerful voice. _Dying is a spectrum,_ but he hadn’t died. He’d lived, scars and all, nightmares and all. He’d lived and risen from a hospital bed with scars on his skin and the Sight in his brain and the ghost of a beautiful boy dogging his steps. 

“But you didn’t.” Credence’s fingers drifted lower until they stopped in his belt buckle. “Let me see you, Percival.” 

“The rest of it too? I-- Credence, the scars. They don’t stop,” Graves answered even as he put his hand on his belt buckle, feeling the chill of the boy’s fingers sink into his skin, his bones. The fire was roaring and the room was hot, making the cold a welcome reprieve. 

“Please.” Credence seemed certain, so he obeyed. 

Graves took off his belt, his slacks, his boxers. Socks and sock-garters, each garment folded neatly and set on the dresser. Old habits, military habits. Didn’t matter that he’d been discharged nearly a decade ago. Didn’t matter that Theseus had shed the habit as quickly as he’d shed every other military trapping, growing his hair and eschewing his dress uniform for a civilian suit when he married. It was an old habit, a good habit. 

It kept his hands from shaking. 

“Well?” Graves managed bravado again in the face of Credence’s quiet stare. The scars didn’t stop at his waist; they forked and twisted over his hips and thighs, wrapped around his knees and calves before grounding out along his feet where the lightning had leapt and buried itself in the ground. 

“I wish I’d met you before,” Credence said quietly as he knelt, fingers tracing over his skin again, drifting from one mark to the other, changing angle at the intersections. 

Graves stifled the wince. “I warned you,” he said. “It’s not--”

“I wish I’d met you when I could touch you.” 

Oh. _Oh._ And Graves’ brain finally processed Credence on his knees in front of him, the trickle of ice down the inside of his thigh a (somehow, impossibly) carnal sensation, the boy’s high cheekbones and full lips as he looked up at him. He felt his mouth go dry and heat start to pool and curl low in his abdomen. 

“If you could,” he asked. “What would you do?” 

Credence stood and pressed close. He was a polar wind against Graves’ hot skin, moving him back until he sat on the edge of the bed, the ghost of the boy standing between this thighs, the point of contacts already chilling rapidly. 

“I cut my soul on the edges of your jaw, and I never got to touch it,” Credence’s fingers traced over Graves’ face as he spoke. “I would have held onto you and never let go. I would have gone down on my knees in the alley to convince you to keep me.” 

“I would have. I couldn’t have stood leaving you there,” Graves answered and how was it that such little stimulus had him reacting? Had the lightning rewritten him so much that the cold on his jaw, the heat of the room, the fantasy of a living Credence on his knees and persuasive could have him half-hard?

“Would you have taken me to bed?” 

“If you had wanted it.” Graves’ lower lip went numb, bordered on a painful pleasure as Credence’s thumb slid over it. It would never have been as simple as that-- a boy half his age, putatively a Squib, raised by a church that hated magic. But it was a fantasy- Graves’ rescue, Credence’s touch. Reality couldn’t stop them right now. 

“How could I not want you?” Credence’s fingers poured down his neck like ice over fire and Graves shuddered. “You have lips I wish I’d kissed. You-- you’ve told me that your brandy tastes like vanilla and honey and fire. I would have drank it from your mouth. I--” He faltered, silvery form going opaque as he blushed. 

“Credence?”

“I don’t-- I don’t know how to talk like this.” Credence let his fingers brush over his chest, over the flat plane of his stomach, passing through the thin line of dark hair as if it wasn’t there and then pausing. The intake of breath he didn’t need let Graves know the boy had noticed his erection, not fully hard yet but visibly at attention. “Percival.” 

Graves quirked an eyebrow. “It is a thing that happens when one is naked and talking about sex with an attractive young man.” 

Credence’s fingers pushed against-- passed through his wrist, but the gesture was clear enough from the direction of the chill that swept across the joint. “Let me see.” 

There wasn’t any way to be ashamed about it, there in the room so hot sweat had started to form on his skin already, made his breath come shallow. Or maybe it was Credence’s gaze on the forking, coppery Lichtenberg marks, seeing and wanting regardless. Or the chill of his touch. Graves obeyed. He shuddered at the heat of his own hand, unable to quite stop his hips from canting into it.

“Like this?” he breathed.

“Like that.” Credence answered. 

“Tell me what you would have done.” Graves knew the reality of the situation, that Credence couldn’t touch him, couldn’t give him his desire, but he wanted the simulacrum, if nothing else. He wanted the fantasy to burn as hot and sear as cold as reality. 

“I would have kissed you until I was drunk on you,” Credence said softly. “Your lips, your throat, those marks I know you didn’t want to show me.” His fingers followed one of the thick, ropey lines over his chest, twisting along his ribs. “They look like scale mail, Percival. Warrior’s wounds.”

The chill was a shock against the heat, making everything stand in sharper relief. He was swollen now, fully erect and the wand-callused friction of his own palm had never felt so keen before, with the roar of the fireplace and Credence’s voice weaving desperate fantasies in his ear. 

“God, I wish you could have held me; you look so strong and…” Credence stumbled and then the words came more clearly. “Like the tower of David builded for an armory, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, all shield of mighty men.”

Graves wasn’t sure what the hell David had to do with this but he wasn’t in any state to ask. His thumb slid back and forth over his tip, head and friction curling and making him shiver and whimper. 

“I would have let you hold me; I would have let you hold me down.” Credence’s voice was stumbling now but going faster, finding the words from somewhere. “I would have opened to you, Percival, opened and dripped myrrh.” 

Graves shuddered. He was lost, mouth dry, lips parted as he panted and worked. His eyes were half-lidded, he could barely see Credence’s silvery form but his lover’s voice was everywhere and Graves dripped, leaked as if the boy’s strange words had been a command. 

“Credence…” he murmured and he couldn’t hold back, fucking into his own hand, harder now, seeking his own release.

Cold settled around his hand, filtered through his own palm so the shock of it made him whine and gasp with frantic need, white lightning so unlike Grindelwald’s lighting up his skin. 

“Let me see,” Credence breathed. “God, Percival, you’re beautiful; you--- thou art all fair, my love, there is no spot in thee. Thou art as a bed of spices, sweet flowers; thy lips are as lilies, dropping sweet smelling myrrh.” 

He was slick and hot against his own hand even as the chill of Credence’s hand on top of his, as if to guide, as if to touch made everything impossibly intense, the two temperatures blending and spiking in a way that made him moan and shiver. _Myrrh_ and then, only then did it finally somehow register in his desperate brain, his heat-and-ice-addled body that Credence was describing him with Scripture-- like he was something _holy_ \-- and the force of it sent him choking over the edge. Heat and ice ran through his veins as he spilled himself over his hand and the force of it left him breathless and wrung out on his bed, gasping for breath in the fire-heated bedroom. 

His eyes fluttered shut for a moment.

“Percival. Percival.” Credence’s voice somehow was almost as ragged as his. “You have to get yourself into bed. I can’t--”

Graves somehow found the energy to obey, wandless magic to clean himself, enough control over his limbs to slid under the sheets. His senses were slowly coming back, remembering Credence’s voice washing over him, the things he had said. 

“You-- you called me your love,” he said slowly. “Was that just Scripture or--”

“It’s not just Scripture.” He felt frozen hands flutter over his chest, his thighs, ice over lightning. “It’s Scripture because it’s true.” 

“So it is, darling.” Graves managed a wry smile. Leave it to him to fall in love with a ghost. 

He slept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think in the comments or hit me up at https://maggieandthedragon.tumblr.com/


	5. Light it at Sundown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Graves hadn’t expected the eldritch candle to _vaporize_ , unmaking itself into a glittering stream of amaranthine smoke. The flame ate through the candle with startling rapidity, producing no streams of wax, only the growing cloud of smoke that began to limn Credence’s form. It was like seeing someone paint color onto an ink drawing, but faster than any human hand could move. Ivory and rose splashed over his hands, his face, this throat. Credence had short-cropped black hair that still threatened unruliness no matter how close it had been cropped. And he had honey-brown eyes rimmed with black and peachy lips that he was worrying nervously with his teeth. 
> 
> Graves was seeing his ghostly lover in color, in _flesh_ , and the sight made something go impossibly tight in his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry guys, these chapters kept growing!

“How are things going with MACUSA?” Theseus was in pajamas again, the consequence of the time gap between New York and London. He had a bottle of mild open next to him and a black Kneazle half-asleep on his lap, white-starred nose twitching faintly as she dreamed. 

“Better, I guess,” Graves answered.

They’d torn through his memories again after the revelation of his Sight, intent on assuring themselves that it was _all_ Grindelwald had left in his mind. He’d spent the week with nightmares agonizing enough to tear through his partial doses of the Sleeping Draught. The nights when he’d woken to find Credence there, hand cold against his sweat-damp skin, were easier than the times he woke alone. But they’d finally accepted his story as true, his mind untainted, his volition intact. 

“Apparently talking to myself adds to my formidable demeanor,” he commented wrily, eyebrow arched. 

“I’ve heard one of the new recruits hides under his desk when you come by,” Theseus teased. Even in the full dark of the London night, his grin shone clearly. 

“Taking cues from Goldstein,” Graves answered and then sobered. “Or he knows I got his predecessor killed.” 

“That’s part of the job though,” Theseus reminded him quietly, fingers brushing over the Kneazle’s ears. “We do our best, but sometimes we lose people.”

“You would think it gets easier.” Graves felt his fingers itch for a snifter of brandy; something stronger than the beer that Theseus had shared with him through the Floo. “I’ve been with the Aurors for nearly twenty-five years.” 

“Never does though.” Theseus said. He sighed. “I’m sorry, though. TJ was a good kid. Always followed me around like a duckling when I came to the Woolworth.” 

“War hero, Thes? Taylor wanted to _be_ you.” 

“Not the verb I would have used.” 

“One of these days, you won’t be young and pretty anymore and you won’t know what to do with yourself,” Graves threatened even as he felt the pull of his grief fade slightly at his friend’s sly grin. 

“Then I’ll come to you for advice on pulling off the whole suave and dignified older gent look.”

Graves snorted. “I don’t think you’re ever going to manage dignity. But thank you. It-- it matters that you still think that.” Thes had seen him broken, scarred, screaming. He had been barely sane, barely verbal when they’d pulled him out of the nightmare Grindelwald had created. That Theseus could still look at him and see _dignity_ mattered.

“I bet Credence does too.”

“Yes,” Graves muttered and felt heat pouring into his cheeks, unable to forget Credence’s shaky voice as he promised myrrh and lilies. “Yes, he does.”

Theseus burst out laughing. “Oh, Merlin, Perce, don’t tell me you--- you did. How in hell’s bells did you manage?”

“Creatively,” Graves gritted out, feeling his face flame even ruther. Only Theseus could make him blush like this.

“My god. You wouldn’t tell me even if I asked you, would you?”

“Absolutely not.”

“I could speculate, but I’ll spare you,” Theseus teased. His grin faded for a moment. “I--might have something that would help with that. Um. The needing to be creative part.”

“Oh?”

“Well. You know the Ministry has very old records. Back before the Statute of Secrecy, when our magic could be a little less covert.” 

“Where are you going with this, Thes?”

“Just--” Theseus opened the drawer on the end table, sending the Kneazle jumping to the floor with a reproachful meow. He handed Graves the pale lavender candle he’d fetched through the green flames of the Floo. “Don’t ask me where I got this.” 

As soon as his hand touched the wax, he felt a shiver run down his spine-- ice water and the silence before an infantry charge. It felt simultaneously like and unlike Credence’s touch. Cold and ethereal but clearly solid and magic. 

“Thes, what the--”

“What part of don’t ask me wasn’t clear?” Theseus asked. “Just..on Samhain, you know the veil’s a little thinner to begin with. Just light it at sundown. It’s not the Resurrection Stone but...it’ll give you the night.”

Graves swallowed hard. God, to be able to touch Credence for real, to give him the things he had yearned for. “Thank you, Thes. I mean it.” 

“This matters to you. _He_ matters to you,” Theseus shrugged. “You’ve been happier since you started this--- whatever this is. I want to help.” 

“Thank you,” Graves said again and his eyes were burning faintly. “But I’m keeping you up. You should get some sleep.” 

“Have to stay young and pretty, after all,” Theseus grinned. He reached through the Floo and squeezed his hand. “Goodnight, Perce.” 

“Goodnight.”

Credence shimmered into view shortly after the Floo call had ended as Graves sat in front of the fire, finishing the beer.

“Were you talking to Theseus?” he asked.

“You can tell?” Graves held out a hand, gesturing for Credence to come sit by him. 

“You always look happier when you do,” Credence answered, settling on the couch next to him. “He’s a good friend.” 

Graves couldn’t keep back the soft chuckle. “He was just saying the same about you. He gave me something too.” 

“What is it? It feels--” Credence reached out to touch the candle as Graves showed it to him. His fingers stopped at the edge of the wax and a wave of blushed ivory rippled over his fingers. 

“Oh Lord.” Credence looked up at him and even in his silvery form, his eyes were shiny. “Thank God, Percival. Thank God.” 

 

Samhain was usually not a holiday to which Graves looked forward. He knew that the veil between worlds thinned on that day-- so there was always a necromancer who wanted to take advantage of a magical beast driven berserk by the change in the air. 

“I’m not going to be available,” he told President Picquery. “I’ll stay as late as I can, but I’m leaving by five-thirty.” 

“Sundown.” 

“Yes, Madame President.” 

Seraphina Picquery fixed him with a cool, assessing gaze across the maple wood of her desk. Graves kept his hands clasped behind him. He waited. 

“I presume you aren’t doing anything foolish?” 

“No, Madame President.” For once in his life, he was doing what he wanted. The only part that felt foolish was not having done this before. Before lightning had stolen his sanity and marked his skin, before a man wearing his face had lured his now-lover to his death. 

But there was nothing he could do about that now. What he could do was charm his house spotless. Leave MACUSA on his lunch break to see the goblin barbers on Lexington, leaving with an impeccable shave and the vague sensation that doing so had been taking his life into his own hands. And call in his favor with Domi, so that when he stopped by the Saint-Sernin on his way home, she had a bottle of Sauternes and a lemon tart in a ribbon-wrapped box waiting for him. 

When he apparated home, copper light was already starting to throw long shadows down his street and the afternoon air bit his freshly shaved cheeks, a threatening reminder of the bitter New York winter to come. Leaves rattled softly as they blew down the streets and Graves could feel the thinning divide, the roiling magic just below the surface. He paused on his stoop before putting his hand on his warded doorknob. It felt strange to be home tonight, rather than dozing uneasily in his office, drinking old coffee and waiting for the inevitable call. 

He gave his scarf and coat to the coat rack, slung his blazer over the back of the couch and put the wine and the tart in the refrigerator to chill. He’d just put a record on the gramophone and poured himself two fingers of brandy when Credence appeared. 

The boy was rattled; Graves could tell by the way he walked _through_ the chair to reach him rather than noticing the object and walking around. 

“Percival.” 

“Credence.” He brushed his cheek and his fingers went numb against his skin. “You’re nervous.” 

“I...I wasn’t joking when I said I had scars,” Credence said softly. “I had them before I died and I don’t know if dying gave me new ones or--” 

 

“So do I.” Graves kissed him softly, feeling his lips go numb, pins and needles on his skin. “You’ve seen them. Do they matter?” 

“No,” Credence said softly.

“Then they don’t matter.”

Credence stayed close to him, eyes closed as if gathering his strength. The light seeping in the brownstone’s windows faded from orange to burnished copper and he finally spoke again, the observation a non-sequitur.

“You shaved.”

“I did. And I got food,” Graves answered. “You wanted Sauternes and kisses and dancing, Credence. I want to give you as much of that as I can.” 

“Other things too,” Credence said softly and his cheeks went opaque in a simulacrum of heat. 

“Other things too,” Graves echoed. He gestured to the coffee table, the candle sitting on a glass dish. The pale purplish hue of it was unsettling, white flesh with no circulation, a drowned body left in cold water. 

Credence nodded wordlessly.

_”Incendio._ ” Graves flicked his fingers and a small flame ignited the wick. 

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting. Despite the shiver that ran down his spine whenever he handled the object and the disquieting color of its wax, it had seemed like a garden-variety enchanted candle in any other sense. He’d fetched the dish for that reason, expecting to have spilled wax, for the effects for to last as long as the candle was burning. 

Graves hadn’t expected it to _vaporize_ , unmaking itself into a glittering stream of amaranthine smoke. The flame ate through the candle with startling rapidity, producing no streams of wax, only the growing cloud of smoke that began to limn Credence’s form. It was like seeing someone paint color onto an ink drawing, but faster than any human hand could move. Ivory and rose splashed over his hands, his face, this throat. Credence had short-cropped black hair that still threatened unruliness no matter how close it had been cropped. And he had honey-brown eyes rimmed with black and peachy lips that he was worrying nervously with his teeth. 

Graves was seeing his lover in _color_ and the sight made something go impossibly tight in his chest. 

Black poured down Credence’s chest, his legs. White trimmed the suit jacket, silver etched a floral design onto his belt buckle. The boy staggered under the weight of gravity, his own flesh, stumbled on his foot not passing through the floor. 

“Easy!” Graves stepped forward. Their bodies collided and Credence was so heavy-- so tangible-- that he had to take a step back so they didn’t both go crashing to the ground.

His lover’s breath was coming hard and fast. “God. I’m cold, Percival. How can I be so cold?” Credence muttered, trembling. 

Credence’s fingers were white and bloodless; Graves took them in his hands and blew on them to warm them, the air damp and brandy-tinged from his lips. 

“...vanilla and honey and fire,” Credence murmured distractedly. “That’s your brandy. That’s…” His fingers curled around Graves, skin-on-skin, his own ice against Graves’ heat but rapidly warming, the heat transfer working, flesh and blood retaining the increased temperature. Then he was nearly lunging for Graves, arms around his shoulders. His cry of impossible joy was muffled against Graves’ mouth, teeth clicking together awkwardly. 

The ardor of it finally unbalanced Graves enough that he stumbled backwards onto the couch. He sat abruptly, bringing Credence with him in a tangle of limbs and lips and clothes but his lover didn’t seem deterred. 

“Kiss me, Percival. Kiss me for real,” he begged, squirming until he was completely in Graves’ lap, thighs on either side of him. 

Graves could only obey. He slid his fingers into Credence’s hair and guided their mouths together more carefully. The short-cropped fuzz on the back of the boy’s head tickled his palm, made his chest go tight as he kissed him, flicked his tongue over lower lip, asking for entrance. Credence opened for him,-- _dripping myrrh_ , Graves couldn’t help thinking with a twist of lust-- let him lick into his mouth until they were both drunk on it. 

The faint taste of honeyed vanilla had blurred between both of their mouths and Graves couldn’t help sliding a thumb down his jawbone, over the lips already red and swollen from being kissed. 

Credence’s tongue slid along the pad of his thumb. “You have calluses,” he said softly. “I didn’t expect that.”

“Quill marks on my fingers, wand marks on my palms,” Graves said softly. His damp thumb trailed down Credence’s throat, caught on the thin black tie he wore at the base of it. “Does it bother you?” 

“No,” Credence answered. He swallowed hard-- Graves could feel his Adam’s apple move under his fingers-- and reached for his tie. “Shall I take this off?”

“Please.”

Graves unknotted the coarse fabric and laid it to the side, then reached for Credence’s vest, unbuttoning first one button, then the next until the garment lay open and he could start on his shirt. Credence caught his wrist when he did, though. His teeth were dug into his swollen lower lip, clearly conflicted. Graves stilled his hands and leaned in instead to kiss him instead. He tugged one hand free to cup his lover’s face instead as the gramophone sang jazz arpeggios in the background, jumping from note to note, a child set free to play. 

After a minute, Credence’s grip slackened on his wrist and he nodded mute permission when Graves touched his shirt again. The buttons came away easily, revealing more pale skin, a thin frame with ribs more visible than Graves liked, the faint trailing marks of what...what was undoubtedly the edge of a belt, when it had struck off-center enough to wrap around. Rage and grief twisted in Graves’ throat and for a moment, he would have _thanked_ the Obscurus if he’d ever had the chance. 

But he had twelve hours. Not enough time to heal scars that old-- if healing magic would even cling to a body borrowed from wax and smoke. Not enough time to feed Credence until the ribs faded out of view. So instead he bent his head to Credence’s chest and sucked one nipple and then the other into his mouth, drawing them between his teeth in turn until the ghost-- no, the _boy_ , his boy was whimpering, freshly drawn breath spilling from his lips in wordless pleas and cries. Until the newly hot blood in his lover’s veins pooled and gathered and Credence squirmed against him, hard and gasping. 

Graves drifted up and caught Credence’s mouth again as his hands settled on the curve of the younger man’s ass, keeping him pressed close.

Credence’s eyes were dilated and his lips were swollen by the time they broke apart. His hands had drifted from Graves’ shoulders, his arms, his chest, his waist, as if he wasn’t what he wanted to hold. 

“Merlin, you’re beautiful,” Graves murmured, sliding a thumb over his lower lip, enjoying the damp warmth of it. The fabric of Credence’s pants under his other palm was coarse, clearly old and inexpensive and Graves made a note to dress him in finery next year. Silk pajamas, a brocade smoking jacket with velvet labels. His lover deserved spoiling.

“How much time do we have?” Credence breathed. 

“Until sunup.”

“And next year?”

“Theseus says it should still work,” Graves answered.

“Well then.” Credence swallowed hard. “Would you take me to bed?”  
Graves nodded. He let Credence slide off his lap and then took his hand, leading him upstairs wordlessly. It was cooler in his bedroom, so he waved his hand, lighting a fire in the smaller hearth. Credence walked past him a few steps into the room, their fingers slipping out of each others. 

“Percival.”

“Yes?”

Credence’s hands had gone to the front of his shirt, for a moment keeping it clutched closed. His stood there for a long moment, tall slender frame lit by the copper light of the fire and he seemed to be warring internally with himself. 

“I...you may as well see now,” he said softly, barely audible and let the clothes slip from his shoulders. 

From the nape of his neck to middle of his ribs, Credence’s back was so thickly clustered with scar tissue it was hard to see skin. The boy’s spine was perfectly straight, more perfectly poised than Graves had ever seen him. He faced forward, refusing to look back to Graves and only the faintest tremor in his limbs gave away how much that composure was costing him. How scared he was. 

Graves stepped forward and and slid his arms around his waist. He pressed a kiss onto the slope of his trapezius muscle, where one of the scars extended nearly to his throat. He could feel Credence trembling under him. 

“Do the Lichtenberg marks matter to you?” he asked against his lover’s skin. 

“No.” Credence’s voice was thick with emotion and he turned to face Graves, fingers tracing down their face. “They don’t.” 

“Then they don’t matter.” 

They’d been scarred, both of them. Seared and broken and betrayed. By a face-stealer and a fascist. By a mother who should have been loving. Right now, though, it didn’t matter, in the Samhain darkness with Credence’s blood flowing hot under his skin and the impossible gift of twelve hours to make things _right_.

Graves picked Credence up and laid him on the bed so he could strip off his pants and kiss every inch of him. He traced a line down his chest again, lavished attention on his hips, the insides of his thighs, just behind his knees. He traced a lazy circle with his tongue just above Credence’s hipbone before sucking a mark into his flesh, pulling a bit of skin between his teeth as Credence writhed and whimpered under him.  
When he drew back, Credence’s cock brushed against his jaw, the skin warm and silky against his own. The temptation was too much to resist, the scent of him a rich salt invitation. He flicked his tongue out over the tip and smirked in satisfaction at the cry it provoked. 

Credence’s inexperience showed; Graves had to pin his hips to keep from choking as he licked and sucked and explored. His eyelids fluttered shut as he focused on the task at hand, Credence on his tongue and the soft sounds slipping out of him. Credence’s fingers slid into his hair, disrupting the last of the pomade’s grip and sending strands of it falling down on either side of his face. 

“God, Percival.” Credence finally tugged on his hair, pulling him up. “If you don’t---” he began but whatever he was going to say was cut short by the sight of Graves, lips damp and red from effort, hair disheveled, and still wearing a three-piece. “How---how are you still fully dressed?” 

Graves glanced up, letting Credence slip off his lower lip and chuckled. “Suppose that isn’t fair, is it, darling. Guess you’re just distracting.” 

He sat back on his heels and couldn’t help running his eyes over the younger man as he undid his tie. Credence sprawled on his bed, cheeks flushed red, skin damp with sweat. Canova would have carved Debauchery like this, long limbs and creamy skin, proud cock in a thatch of dark hair. 

“You’re staring,” Credence accused, cheeks going a deeper red even as he sat up on one elbow and reached for the buttons of Graves’ waistcoat. 

“You’re beautiful.” 

The answer had been simple but sincere, a moment of thoughtless honesty. Graves hadn’t expect Credence to choke on nothing but air in response, pull him close and kiss him. They hit the mattress hard, nearly bouncing and Graves gave up on undressing properly, relying on magic so they could be skin to skin. He was eager in a way that he’d thought Grindelwald had taken from him, barely noticing the marks left by lightning under Credence’s hands. Their limbs tangled; Credence’s mouth slid over his throat, his collarbone, the twisted copper scarring knotted over his heart.

“I wish you had found me before.” 

With Credence’s mouth against his skin, Graves felt the words more than heard them, a warm susurrus against his skin. 

“I know,” he answered, even as his hands slid down Credence’s sides, his narrow waist and hips, breathing at the precipice. “But I have you now.” 

“You do,” Credence said and he wrapped a leg around him, heel pressing an invitation against the curve of Graves’ ass. “You have me.” 

 

“Are you sure?” Graves asked even as he held his hand, summoning the tube he kept in his bedside table-- and that he wasn’t so much of a prig that he couldn’t admit it had been mostly for his own pleasure until now. 

“You’ve asked me that every night since Theseus gave you the candle.” Credence’s said and the heel of his leg pushed again in a clear and physical assertion. “ _Yes_.”

“Apologies,” Graves murmured against his neck as he slicked his fingers. “I won’t make you wait any more.” 

It didn’t take long to open him up, the soft sounds of unease or uncertainty replaced by soft whines of pleasure as Graves’ finger found what he was looking for, body arching and shuddering under him. One finger, then two and Graves couldn’t help lingering there, his fingers knuckle-deep in his lover’s body, every beckoning gesture making Credence whine and gasp. 

Credence’s skin was damp with sweat; it left a salt tang on Graves’ tongue when he traced it over his chest, in his mouth when he gave the younger man a matching bruise just above his other hipbone. 

“Percival.” Credence’s voice was disjointed, words barely strung together. “Making me wait?” His heel dug in again, insistent this time until Graves gave him what he wanted and pushed inside. 

”Shit,” Graves gritted out. Credence was tight around him and so _impossibly_ hot. Somehow he hadn’t expected it--- as warm as his skin and hands and mouth had been, he hadn’t thought he would still feel so alive and present around him. The candle’s magic was flawless-- flawless for twelve hours and Graves had every intention of making used to it. 

He slid a shaky thumb down Credence’s cheekbone, his mouth, rolling it over his full lower lip as he started to move, a slow rocking motion, going slowly at first for both of their sakes. Credence was gasping under him and he drowned the sounds with his own mouth, breathing them in. The younger man squirmed. His lover was murmuring distractedly; Graves couldn’t tell if it was Scripture again or pleas for him to keep going. 

Graves obliged, muscles working now, his own skin starting to dampen from exertion, the heat of the room, the friction of Credence tight around him and he couldn’t hold back the groan of pleasure when Credence’s nails dug into his back. A thin line of moisture trailed down Credence’s cock and the sight of his lover leaking leaking made Graves’ mouth go dry, made him remember the wild promises and archaic language of before. 

_I would have opened to you, Percival, opened and dripped myrrh._

Graves lost himself, wrapping a hand around Credence’s leaking cock as he gave himself over to the desire that had been building since July, since September, since the moment Theseus had handed the candle through the green flames of the Floo network. Credence was shaking, whining through his nose with increasing desperation. He was leaking over Graves’ hand, hard and swollen against his palm and Graves could feel how close he was, how much he was straining to hold back. 

“Darling,” he breathed in his ear, thumb sliding easily over his lover’s cock, a slick and carnal entreaty. “I have you. I have you. Let go.” 

Credence came nearly on command, body arching and locking around Graves’ as he came with a cry. Warmth dripped through Graves’ fingers and the feeling of it, the friction of Credence’s body around him was too much, too much. Lightning lit up down his spine, through his heart and this time he let it take him, let his vision go white as he spilled himself inside Credence. Inside the corporeal body of his ghost lover. 

They laid there for a long moment, sweat cooling on their skin. 

“You called me darling,” Credence murmured.

“Because you are.” Graves found himself smiling, a kind of sex-dazed euphoria that made everything seem brighter than it was. He trailed a finger down Credence’s jaw. “Not Scripture. But still true.” 

Credence somehow blushed scarlet even through the flush that had already swept over his skin. “We’re terrible blasphemers. And lechers. I’ve been corporeal for---”

“A very excellent hour.” Graves wouldn’t hear it, leaning down to kiss him. “And I think I have gluttony on the menu next. I don’t think we were planning on wearing enough clothes to go to the Saint-Sernin, so…I had Domi make us a picnic.”

Graves lent Credence a robe so they could go downstairs and raid the fridge without getting cold, though the boy scarcely needed it. Graves had lit every hearth in the brownstone, filling the air with light and warmth, banishing the threatening cold outside for the night. 

They ate lemon tart with glasses of chilled Sauternes and then Credence insisted on trying his brandy in a snifter this time, rather than Graves’ lips, only to sputter and cough and remark that Graves hadn’t been joking when he said it tasted like fire. Graves had to apologize for such a disappointment, after all, and what better way to do it than to slid to his knees between his lover’s thighs and spell out his contrition with lips and tongue and throat?

Graves showed him the basics of the jitterbug, although they weren’t very good. For as much as Credence counted dutifully as they went through the steps, either he tripped over his own feet or Graves stepped on them, sending them onto the couch in a laughing, tangled up heap. They built up more of a sweat getting distracted there than any kind of dancing. 

At three a.m., Graves made them eggs and bacon and enough coffee to keep them up the rest of the night. When they’d eaten and he’d charmed the dishes to clean themselves, he lured Credence back upstairs with the promise of a shower and more hot water than he could ever exhaust. 

They made a valiant attempt at it anyway; Credence pressed Graves against the cold tile, left his own mark in the meat of his shoulder as he moved inside him, left him weak-kneed and trembling under the hot spray as he came into his lover’s hand. 

In the last few moments before dawn, though a quiet lassitude had overcome them both. Credence had just wanted to be held, to be kept warm and Graves had obliged. They laid pressed close, legs tangled together under the thick coverlet and Credence’s head tucked into his shoulder. 

Rosy light was beginning to spill through the windows of the brownstone though, and the fire in the hearth burned low. 

“It must be nearly time,” Credence said softly. “I...I’m getting colder.” 

It was true; Credence’s body was losing some of its heat, the rosy flush that had lived on his cheekbones for the past few hours going pale now. 

“I’m sorry. I wish---” Graves winced. “There are some things magic can’t do.” 

“No. I--I wasn’t even expecting this. Percival, I _died_. I died and you-” he gave him a wry smile. “You danced with me. Let me hold you; drink Sauternes and try your brandy. You made me terrible coffee and kissed me until I couldn’t breathe. Please don’t apologize. Just--” He leaned down to kiss him and the faint static of his ghostly form numbed Graves’ lips even as he could still feel Credence. “Start making a list. For next year.” 

“I will,” Graves promised .A year to hold Credence again? A year when he wouldn’t be alone either way; he would have Credence with him even if they couldn’t touch. He had waited five months in solitary pain for his team to find him. A year wasn’t so long of a time.

Amaranthine smoke started to peel off Credence’s body, drifting up through the covers and slowly reforming the eldritch candle he’d lit at sundown, until the only thing left was the silvery body of the boy, sitting on the mattress as if his flesh was still bound by physics. He was backlit by the pink light of dawn; it shone muted through his smile.   
“You should sleep,” he said softly. “I kept you up all night.” 

“Are you suggesting I’m old?” Theseus already had, after all. Why shouldn’t Credence join in?

“No, my love,” and Credence’s fingers along his scalp were a comforting chill. “But you’re living and you need to take care of yourself.”

Credence was right. Graves was living; he breathed and bled and aged in a way that Credence’s death forbade him from doing. But if dying was a spectrum, then so was living. They wouldn’t grow old together, forgetting what it was to be young and pretty and maybe eventually stumbling into old and dignified. When they drank together, one snifter would have just enough brandy to fill the air with scent. But they would have stifling July evenings with every window open and the cicadas singing down the avenue. They would have the dates where Graves looked like he was talking to himself and the duels where he had a second pair of eyes. They would have Scripture and Sauternes and one night out of the year where a magic candle and a thinning veil gave Percival Graves’ lover back to him. 

They would live.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for coming on this ride with me! I know many of you were hoping for a slightly less bittersweet ending, but I hope this is still satisfactory for you. Thank you to morwrach for the lovely prompt!
> 
> Let me know what you think in the comments or hit me up at https://maggieandthedragon.tumblr.com/


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